SCAUT has participated to a special session during the World Tunnel Congress 2023 in Athens, held from 12-18 May 2023, ITACUS - the ITA Committee on Underground Space, co-chaired by Han Admiraal and Antonia Cornaro.

3 major issues were discussed:

· Advocacy and capacity building

· Future think

· Collaboration and knowledge building

Advocacy and capacity building we featured the ITACUS National Actions Think Deep Programme (NATDP) and how it is leading to activities at national level focusing on advocacy and capacity building, lead by Abidemi Agwor (Nigeria), Vincent Rono (Kenya) and the deputy of Her Excellency Opunimi Akinkugbe, the Nigerian Ambassador to Greece. We heard about the setting up of Think Deep Kenya and the ROWGA Think Deep Programme for Cities that was setup in Nigeria. Two students who won the essay competition joined us live from Lagos, Nigeria.

In the second part was thinking future, with Veronika Petschen, SCAUT, the Swiss Centre for Applied Underground Technology and Michael Kompatscher, Hagerbach Test Gallery in a conversation on future trends. We discussed examples of how industry can be challenged and involved in exploring new ways forward. Whether it is developing new energy solutions or designing a Mars habitat, what role can underground space play in this? Can we translate what is needed for outer space to solutions for our own planet?

We discussed how the Hagerbach Test Gallery (VersuchsStollen Hagerbach AG) Test Gallery with the help of SCAUT - and participating partners like ITACUS and Mission Earth First is interacting with pioneering startups to develop solutions for the visionary idea of living on Mars or other planets. Solutions include those that offer products/services that could make life on Mars possible. Be it solutions for constructing buildings/caverns, energy, air or water management, health & safety, transportation, food production, or communication. The goal is a self-sustaining habitat based on the principles of a circular economy. These new technologies and principles can be applied and tested in underground spaces. The so-called Mars Habitat challenge event is held annually in conjunction with Venturelab.

We then transitioned to the third and final part collaboration and knowledge building: Developing underground spaces requires collaboration between professionals from various disciplines. The Young Professionals’ Think Deep Programme (YPTDP) aims at achieving this through hands on weeklong workshops. Our most recent one was held in Gdansk, Poland. AG 1, YPTDP co-lead Petr Salak (Israel) was joined live on stage by WG11 animateur Marcel 't Hart (the Netherlands) and urban planner Konstantinos Karantzoulis (Greece) to report back on this unique way of creating multidisciplinary solutions for urban challenges. They shared four proposals which the groups had worked on during the week-long stay with a final presentation to the city government.

This summary was written using an article from ITACUS, so for more details visit: 
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/way-forward-itacus-the-ita-committee-of-underg%3FtrackingId=FHCJ2s%252B0FfgHpGG%252BW6I8uA%253D%253D/?trackingId=FHCJ2s%2B0FfgHpGG%2BW6I8uA%3D%3D